This document summarizes an advanced Selenium workshop covering topics like using Selenium in different languages, data-enabling Selenium scripts, testing Ajax applications, writing test object libraries, performance issues testing Ajax apps with Selenium and IE7, and best practices for component-based testing. The agenda includes sessions on Selenium basics, locators, XPath, event handling, TinyMCE integration, distributed testing, and performance mitigation strategies.

1. Advanced Selenium Workshop
Frank Cohen, +01 (408) 871-0122, fcohen@pushtotest.com
March 31, 2011

2. Open Source Test Automation
About PushToTest
‣Our Mission: We Test, For A More Reliable World
‣Make It Easier To Move From Manual To Automated Testing
‣Support Advanced Testing, including Agile, Load, Integration
‣Open Source Testing (OST) For Everyone
2

3. Open Source Test Automation
Agenda
‣Using Selenium in Java, Python, Ruby
‣Data enabling Selenium scripts
‣Selenium target locators for Ajax applications
‣How To Work with TinyMCE (and other Ajax components) in Selenium
‣Writing Selenium-based Test Object Libraries
3

4. Open Source Test Automation
Selenium Browser Automation
4
‣Selenium Core
‣Selenium RC
‣Selenium Grid
‣Selenium IDE
‣Selenium Domain Specific Language (DSL)

5. Open Source Test Automation
What Is Selenium Missing?
‣Selenium Core and RC Require A Browser
‣Selenium IDE Record In Firefox Only, Coding Required To Be Useful,
No Data Enablement
‣Selenium Grid for Functional Testing Only
‣No Reports or Results Analysis
‣No Cloud or Grid Deployment
‣No CI or QC Integration
‣RIA Testing using Ajax, Flex, Flash
5

6. Open Source Test Automation
Selenium Language Basics
6
‣Page Commands
‣Element Commands
‣Validation Commands
‣Assertion Commands
‣Storage Commands

7. Open Source Test Automation
Selenium Locators
‣Identifiers
‣loginForm
‣id=loginForm
‣name=loginForm
‣XPath (1.0 from W3C, no support of 2.0 and XQuery)
‣Link Locator
‣link=Continue <a href=”mypage”>Continue</a>
‣DOM APIs
‣dom=document.getElementById('loginForm')
‣CSS Selectors
‣css=input.required[type="text"]
7

8. Open Source Test Automation
Fun With XPath
8
‣/html/body/table/tr/td/a -> //table/tr/td/a
‣//div[@id='manage_messages_iterator']
‣<div id=”manage_messages_iterator”> blah </div>
‣//tr[@class=’SelectedRow’]/td[1]
‣<table><tr class=”SelectedRow”><td>me 1</td><td>me 2</td></
tr></table>
‣//td[child::text()=’myemail@me.com’]
‣<table><tr><td>myemail@me.com</td</tr></table>
‣//td[contains(child::text(),’@’)]

9. Open Source Test Automation
Miscellaneous
‣<a href=”continue.html”>Continue</a>
‣link=Continue
‣RFC 1738 example
‣ http://myusername:myuserpassword@myexample.com/blah/blah/blah
9

10. Open Source Test Automation
String Pattern Matches
‣glob:pattern
‣* represents any sequence of characters
‣? represents any single character
‣Matches against the entire string
‣regexp:regexp
‣Match a string using a regular-expression
‣Includes JavaScript regular-expressions
‣exact:string
‣Equals
‣No pattern prefix means use "glob" pattern
10

11. Open Source Test Automation
Event Handling and Ajax
‣Selenium Tests Are Event Oriented
‣Not Timing Oriented
‣Ajax Web Objects
‣Complicated Structures
‣Dynamic Values
‣Asynchronous Events
‣No Standards
‣Ajax Example
11

12. Open Source Test Automation
Fun With JavaScript
‣selenium.type("id", "frank");
‣selenium.type(“id”, “javascript{ new Date().getTime();}”);
‣Class Persistence Within A Page
12
<tr>
<td>assertEval</td>
<td>myfunc = function ( myfile ) { alert(myfile); return 1 }; 1;</td>
<td>1</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>assertEval</td>
<td>myfunc(&quot;frankolo&quot;)</td>
<td>1</td>
</tr>

13. Open Source Test Automation
Looping And Conditionals
‣Great For Ajax Asynchronous Events
13
<tr>
<td>waitForCondition</td>
<td>selenium.browserbot.getCurrentWindow().document.
getElementById('login_button').disabled == false</td>
<td>10000</td>
</tr>

14. Open Source Test Automation
TinyMCE Editor API Access
‣http://tinymce.moxiecode.com/
14
selenium.browserbot.getCurrentWindow().
document.tinyMCE.execCommand
('mceInsertContent',false,'<b>Hello world!!</b>');

15. Open Source Test Automation
Distributed Test Deployment
15
Application Under Test
TestMaker Console
TestNode
Selenese Test
Selenium RC SeleniumHtmlUnit Selenese Table Format Interpreter
Selenium API

16. Open Source Test Automation
16
Script Runners
ScriptRunner Type
Sahi Sahi Test Tool
HAR HTTP Archive
Designer Script Designer Script
Selenium HtmlUnit Browser
Selenium RC IE, Firefox, Chrome
SoapUI SOAP and REST
TestGen4Web Web 1.0 Tests
Mozmill Mozilla XUL Tests
Unit Tests jUnit TestCase
DotNet .NET Tests
Visual Basic VB tests
Command Line Desktop and utils

17. Open Source Test Automation
Component Approach
17
Data
Production
Log-In
Component
setUp
runTest
tearDown
Application
TestScenario
Test Use Case
Product Search
Order Product
Log-Out
RDBMS DPL
CSV DPL
Custom DPL
Load Test
100 Users 500 Users 1000 Users
Log-In
Component
Component
Development
Database
QA Regression
Database
Load Test
Database Confirm Order
Production
Database

18. Open Source Test Automation
TestMaker Object Designer
18
‣Point-and-Click Functional Test Record/Playback
‣Record Tests In IE, Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Opera
‣Automatic Ajax Synchronization
‣Drag-and-Drop Data Driven Testing
‣Creates Selenium, Sahi, and Flex Tests
Demo

19. Next let’s talk about
Open Source Test Automation
Performance Anxiety
‣The Perfect Storm: IE 7, Selenium, Appcelerator
‣Mitigation
19
Research Prepared By
Luis Carlos Lara, llara@pushtotest.com
William Martinez, william@pushtotest.com

20. Open Source Test Automation
The Problem
20
Ajax App, Selenium RC, TestMaker,
Firefox 3
Ajax App, Selenium RC, TestMaker,
Internet Explorer 7
30 s
30 m

21. Open Source Test Automation
How Bad?
21
‣The IE 7 JavaScript engine runs up 8-times slower than Firefox 3
‣Appcelerator’s page compiler does not appear to be optimized for IE
7 performance.
‣We observed 30% performance difference in the way Appcelerator
runs text fields between IE 7 and Firefox 3.
‣Some commonly used Selenium functions are not optimized for
performance.
‣We observed a 1798% performance difference by using different
Selenium element locator techniques.

22. Open Source Test Automation
Test 1: No JavaScript
22
‣Simple (almost no JavaScript) page (Google)
‣The total results of the tests were similar. 3800 ms for Firefox and
4000 ms for IE.

23. Open Source Test Automation
Caching Impact
‣Firefox Caches JavaScript Objects
‣Repeat for 1 Minute:
‣Plus IE7/Selenium Exceptions (8 times): Permission Denied
23

24. Open Source Test Automation
Test 2: Ajax Application
‣Javascript heavy site
‣Appcelerator’s Calendar sample that ships with PushToTest
TestMaker 5.2.3
24

25. Open Source Test Automation
Resource Utilization
25
Firefox 3 IE 7

26. Open Source Test Automation
‣Selenium Type Command using various element locator functions
‣This may be because of:
‣Slow JavaScript engine in IE.
‣Selenium not optimized for IE.
‣Slow xpath system engine (if any) in IE.
Element Locator
26

27. Open Source Test Automation
Mitigation
27
‣Run functional tests in Selenium RC with IE 7 and expect very long
functional test times.
‣The test will complete eventually.
‣Do not compare the performance to the same test running on other
browsers.
‣Run functional tests using HTMLUnit with an Internet Explorer profile.
‣Simulates IE functionality while using the faster Rhino JavaScript
engine provided in HTMLUnit.
‣Details on PushToTest support for Selenium are found at
http://selenium.pushtotest.com.

28. Open Source Test Automation
Best Practices
‣Build Test Components
‣Treat your tests as software
‣Easier to maintain
‣Resilient to application changes
‣Apply JUnit-style Test Techniques
‣Set-up, Run-test, Tear-down methods
‣Write Stateless Test Components
‣Test puts application into the correct state
28

29. Open Source Test Automation
We Recommend
29
Components
Record -> Script
Dynamic Locators
Work With Devs
Events
Pause
Use Static Values
Storage Values
Test and Trash
Expect The Same
Do Don’t

30. Open Source Test Automation
Resources
‣http://www.pushtotest.com/download-testmaker6-preview
‣http://seleniumhq.org
‣http://selenium.pushtotest.com
‣http://refcardz.dzone.com/refcardz/getting-started-selenium
‣http://refcardz.dzone.com/refcardz/getting-started-selenium-20
‣http://www.pushtotest.com/products-comparison
30

31. Open Source Test Automation
Where To Go From Here
‣Please Complete The Evaluation Form
‣And We Will Send You The Slides
‣Watch A Screencast and Tutorial
‣http://www.pushtotest.com/screencastcentral
‣Attend An Open Source Test Workshop
‣http://workshop.pushtotest.com
‣Ask For A Proposal on Licenses, Training, Support, Consulting
‣Troy Amyett, +01 512-750-8769 (USA, Texas),
troy@pushtotest.com
31